Thursday, December 15, 2011

That’s the distance from uptown Charlotte, to South Park, through Myers Park & Dilworth, and back to uptown.

If you had told me, even 6 months ago, I would ever run. I would have called you crazy.

Let alone that kind of distance.

But I did it… 13.1 miles. A half marathon. And no, I didn’t die, though at a couple of points during the actual race I thought I would.

I was supposed to start training in Quito. But really, at that altitude, um, no.

I could barely breathe.

we cursed and swore that this was the worst idea ever. My friend Cristin documented it all in this article.. of how a bunch of semi-in-shape-and-not-at-all-in-shape women one night on a dare decided running a half marathon would be a good idea. It was May… we’d had a couple of cocktails… the race was in November… we could totally do this… right?

Then, suddenly, the weekend runs became longer. A LOT longer. And the date got closer. A LOT closer.

my early-morning-pre-race-picture. lululemon leggings, my jellybeans, gum, and yes, a large bottle of ibuprofen (no, I didn’t actually bring it with me).

a very blurry picture of the ‘electric lemonade’ girls… cristin, jenny, leigh, lindsay, kristi & amy. those smiles were gone about 20 minutes after this picture was taken.

We did a great job… running at our own paces and in my case, dragging (literally at times) Kristi along with me because I refused to leave her behind (until the last mile when she said she was walking and I was like ‘girlfriend, I’ll see you at the finish line’). We all finished and averaged anywhere between 10:30 and 13 minute miles (my best was early on…a 9:45 mile… apparently I was on crack at the time.. but I averaged out at about 11:40 a mile).

My girlfriend Anne said it best… something to the effect of, as moms… in particular stay-at-home moms, we need these kinds of challenges. And it’s true. Pushing myself to do this was scary but awesome and I ‘m so proud of my girls who overcame injuries, pregnancy, health issues, and general laziness to rock out this race.

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Better than fine… because not only did this happen weeks ago (October 25th to be exact), but children are made out of rubber.

I’ve waited this long to add this to the book of this year because I couldn’t look at the pictures of her fall without crying. Honestly, they still make me well up.

There’s no other explanation.

Because, if you fall backwards 6 1/2 feet when you weigh 30 pounds and are only four years old, something terrible is probably going to happen. A broken arm, a punctured lung. Something.

She bounced.

But not her…and for that we are eternally grateful. A nasty bruise on her cheek that lasted a week, and the chance to tell her classmates that she got to see the inside of an ambulance is all she got for her troubles.

A million thanks to Rebecca who said “I’m calling 911”, to the random dad at the park who saw me try to scoop her up and said “don’t try to lift her – she fell backwards and may have injured her spine”, to Mary for jumping back in to nurse mode and looking her over, and to Kate for sympathizing over my new hatred of this park and taking the pictures.